Berwyn's Cermak Plaza Shopping Center features a piece of public art like no other: eight cars impaled on a 40-foot-tall spike in the center of its spacious parking lot. Named "Spindle," the car kebob went up in 1989, skewered by Los Angeles artist Dustin Shuler, and had a cameo appearance in the film Wayne's World.
Spindle has beckoned generations of video-shooting visitors, who yield to the irresistible urge to drive doughnuts around it. But time and the elements have taken their toll on the eight skewered junkyard cars, leaving them battered and rusted by Chicagoland weather and caked with pigeon poop.
Cermak Plaza wants to tear down Spindle so that it can build a Walgreens with a drive-thru. Proposals have been floated to move the sculpture to another spot in the parking lot, or to build a new Spindle elsewhere. Multiple deadlines have passed, yet Spindle still stands -- we hope for a long time to come.
Update: The Spindle was finally demolished on May 2, 2008, after a failed attempt to sell it on eBay. The top two cars -- the VW Beetle and the BMW -- were lifted off the spike (for possible future display), then the rest of the sculpture was toppled with a backhoe.
